Rebel News Podcast - Can Donald Trump's Art of the Deal business mastery solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about Jared Kushner's speech in Bahrain, where he tries to put forward a deal to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.

00:00:11.060 I'll give you my thoughts on it. I'll play a clip from Kushner, and I'll give you my recollection of the Camp David proposals of almost 20 years ago.

00:00:20.000 Before I do, though, can you mosey on over to the rebel.media slash shows, and would you please consider becoming a subscriber?

00:00:27.900 You get the premium content, which means you get the video version of the podcast.

00:00:33.040 And you also get Sheila Gunn-Reed's show and David Menzies' show, and of course, the satisfaction of knowing that you help us pay our bills.

00:00:40.280 All right, without further ado, here is today's podcast.

00:00:44.040 You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.

00:00:47.340 Tonight, can Donald Trump bring his deal-making skills to the intractable Palestinian-Israel standoff?

00:00:54.260 It's June 27th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:57.900 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:02.800 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:06.880 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:01:18.040 Let me show you a clip of Jared Kushner.

00:01:20.600 He's Donald Trump's son-in-law and general fixer.

00:01:24.420 Take a look at this.

00:01:25.260 To be clear, economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people are not possible without an enduring and fair political solution to the conflict,

00:01:48.520 one that guarantees Israel's security and respects the dignity of the Palestinian people.

00:01:55.640 However, today is not about the political issues.

00:01:58.740 We'll get to those at the right time.

00:02:00.920 The goal of this workshop is to begin thinking about these challenges in a new way.

00:02:05.960 Let's try to view this conflict and the potential of the entire region through a different lens

00:02:10.580 and work together to develop a concrete plan to try and achieve it.

00:02:15.100 For a moment, imagine a new reality in the Middle East. 0.85

00:02:19.280 Imagine a bustling commercial and tourist center in Gaza and the West Bank where international businesses come together and thrive.

00:02:26.220 Imagine the West Bank as a blossoming economy full of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, and business leaders.

00:02:34.780 Imagine people and goods flowing quickly and securely throughout the region as economics become more integrated and people become more prosperous.

00:02:44.540 This isn't a stretch.

00:02:46.540 This is actually the historical legacy of the Middle East, specifically of Gaza and the West Bank.

00:02:53.020 It is a legacy of great cultures coming together as a center of commerce, innovation, and prosperity.

00:02:59.960 What do you make of that?

00:03:01.240 I'll give you some thoughts on the substance of it, and we'll ask a smarter guy than me, our friend Joel Pollack, in a moment.

00:03:07.400 But, you know, the first thing I thought about when I saw that clip, it's how long it's been since I heard anyone serious in politics, in a leadership position, a decider, talk about the Israel-Palestine issue.

00:03:20.680 You know that Sherlock Holmes story where the clue was the dog that didn't bark?

00:03:25.780 I think about that a lot.

00:03:27.240 We're so busy listening and responding to and thinking about the dogs that bark in our life, maybe we don't notice the voices we no longer hear.

00:03:35.260 A Canadian example was the national unity crisis under Stephen Harper.

00:03:39.340 You know, for years, we forget sometimes.

00:03:41.600 That was the central obsession of the Liberal Party, for example.

00:03:45.440 It makes sense.

00:03:46.060 In 1995, the Quebec separation referendum came within half a percent of succeeding.

00:03:51.340 And that was after Brian Mulroney's PCs and their disastrous Charlottetown Accord.

00:03:56.700 And, of course, the Bloc Québécois itself, remember them, emerged from Mulroney's coalition.

00:04:01.580 It was all the country's fancy people seemed to talk about.

00:04:04.620 And then suddenly, when Stephen Harper and his conservatives took office, with very few seats in Quebec, I might add,

00:04:11.420 and he himself being a true blue Westerner, sometimes called a cowboy,

00:04:14.980 well, you'd think separatism would have boiled over in Quebec, but the opposite.

00:04:18.880 He cooled it off so much that the Bloc Québécois just sort of evaporated as a party.

00:04:23.840 Same with the provincial Parti Québécois.

00:04:25.740 Same with the national afraidness on the subject.

00:04:30.440 And, by the way, Harper also cooled off any lingering Western separatism, too.

00:04:35.320 For a decade under Harper, national unity was the dog that didn't bark.

00:04:39.860 Incredible how quickly Justin Trudeau has inflamed that again, by the way.

00:04:42.980 But that's the thing.

00:04:43.520 It was an obsession of the political class, the media class, the pundits, the pollsters, the lobbyists.

00:04:49.940 All federal spending was viewed through that lens of how can we keep Quebec in.

00:04:54.240 Anyone and everyone was walking on eggshells about Quebec.

00:04:57.180 Political leaders for every party, well, they just had to be from Quebec, obviously.

00:05:01.180 And then they just stopped.

00:05:03.780 And that's what I'm thinking about, the Israel-Palestinian issue.

00:05:07.620 It was an obsession of the West.

00:05:09.900 During the Cold War, it was obviously less dominant than the central challenge of that age.

00:05:14.660 Although it was sort of a proxy for the Cold War, with Israel being backed by the Democratic allies

00:05:19.640 and the Arab states generally being on the side of the Soviet Union.

00:05:23.700 But when the Berlin Wall fell, and before the horrors of 9-11 changed the, I suppose, the next chapter,

00:05:31.040 there was this brief holiday from seriousness.

00:05:34.200 Francis Fukuyama called it the end of history.

00:05:37.440 And filling that empty void of things to talk about, I guess, was the Israel-Arab dispute,

00:05:44.020 more particularly the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

00:05:46.160 I should tell you that all of Israel's disputes with all of its Arab neighbors 0.93

00:05:50.440 and all of its domestic terrorism and all its fights with the Palestinians,

00:05:54.380 all of its wars and all the terrorism in the past 75 years, 100 years,

00:06:00.240 its War of Independence in 1948, the famous Six-Day War in 1967,

00:06:04.320 the 1973 Yom Kippur War, all the war in Lebanon, and all the terrorist attacks and Israeli counterattacks,

00:06:11.040 you know that all of that combined for the past 75 years,

00:06:15.100 you know the total death toll on both sides for that entire history of the modern conflict?

00:06:21.640 Do you know it's less than 100,000 souls?

00:06:23.860 I mean, listen, that's terrible.

00:06:25.740 But in the scope and the scale of things, that is a drop in the bucket.

00:06:29.820 You know the Syrian civil war, that alone has cost half a million lives in, what, five years?

00:06:36.820 The civil war in Yemen, much briefer, but it's much more recent,

00:06:41.540 is estimated to have already cost 70,000 lives.

00:06:44.800 That's as much as a century of disputes between Israel and the Palestinians.

00:06:48.820 My point is not to dismiss the tragedy of the Israel-Palestinian conflict or any of the other conflicts,

00:06:55.400 but to point out that the amount of political interest and political capital

00:06:58.840 and attention the political media spend huffing and puffing about Israel and the Palestinians

00:07:02.920 is bizarrely disproportionate compared to other conflicts, even in the same region.

00:07:08.500 It is small, but the media make it look huge.

00:07:12.580 For years, the size of the international press corps in Israel

00:07:15.400 was as large as it was in cities like Paris or London.

00:07:18.180 The CBC was the worst, by the way. CTV, the same.

00:07:21.900 Huge and obsessed.

00:07:23.480 During Bill Clinton's term as president, that was really the end of history interregnum

00:07:28.480 from 1992 to 2000.

00:07:30.960 What a time to be president, eh?

00:07:32.400 The world was at peace.

00:07:34.080 People were talking about the peace dividend.

00:07:36.400 We don't have to pay the military anymore.

00:07:38.320 Everything was happy.

00:07:40.200 The two Germanys were reuniting.

00:07:42.660 Perpetual peace was upon us.

00:07:44.620 During Clinton's tenure, did you know that Yasser Arafat,

00:07:47.780 the head of the terrorist Palestinian liberation organization, the PLO?

00:07:52.000 Arafat became the number one most frequent visitor to the White House of any foreign leader.

00:07:57.580 Can you believe that?

00:07:58.940 The number one visitor.

00:08:00.120 I suppose it was a millenarian thing.

00:08:02.900 Do you know what I mean by that?

00:08:04.040 The end of the millennium.

00:08:05.280 Maybe Bill Clinton wanted some sort of legacy other than Monica Lewinsky. 1.00

00:08:11.500 Maybe Israel, too, was feeling strong.

00:08:13.740 And so everybody wanted to be known for all time as the bringer of peace.

00:08:17.480 And who knows?

00:08:17.860 Maybe the Messiah would come.

00:08:19.240 It's the second millennium. 0.93

00:08:20.660 And so Israel and America offered a terrorist named Yasser Arafat.

00:08:25.420 They offered him everything.

00:08:28.480 And I really do mean everything.

00:08:30.380 All the land, the Gaza and the West Bank.

00:08:32.860 There were a few acres of exceptions.

00:08:35.220 Land that was densely inhabited by Jews.

00:08:38.080 But Israel gave up other land in compensation.

00:08:41.160 Israel gave the Palestinians control over the Temple Mount.

00:08:44.200 The Temple Mount is in the remains of the Jewish temple itself.

00:08:48.160 Israel gave Palestinians around the world the right to move back into Israel.

00:08:52.200 150,000 a year, which for a tiny country like Israel is stunning. 0.55

00:08:56.620 That would be, you know, what's that?

00:08:59.620 Israel, a country of 7, 8 million people.

00:09:02.300 That would be like almost a million people coming into Canada every year.

00:09:07.140 All Arabs.

00:09:08.260 And billions of dollars of cash to the PLO.

00:09:11.840 And security promises.

00:09:13.300 In fact, America and Israel would actually train and arm the Palestinians.

00:09:18.460 I'm not making any of this up.

00:09:19.660 You can check it out for yourself.

00:09:20.500 It's called the Camp David Accords.

00:09:22.840 Every single thing was given to them.

00:09:27.180 And they had this happy handshake.

00:09:30.780 Israel, the Palestinians, Bill Clinton.

00:09:33.160 It was going to be wonderful.

00:09:34.420 The three men, Israel's Ehud Barak, the PLO's Yasser Arafat, and Bill Clinton.

00:09:38.800 You know, they met for two solid weeks

00:09:40.720 at the U.S. President's Camp David retreat.

00:09:43.840 And they had that deal.

00:09:46.680 But then Arafat just said,

00:09:48.920 no, didn't mean it.

00:09:50.600 He was given every single thing.

00:09:53.840 And all he had to do was to accept yes for an answer.

00:09:56.680 But he didn't.

00:09:57.620 He wouldn't.

00:09:58.140 Or maybe he couldn't.

00:09:58.980 I don't know.

00:09:59.300 He didn't want peace for some reason.

00:10:00.520 I've heard it said that he was worried he himself would be overthrown by hardliners.

00:10:05.380 Or maybe it said he didn't want the boring and hard work of actually building a country.

00:10:10.240 You know, picking up the garbage, cleaning up, you know, doing the day-to-day humdrum work.

00:10:15.400 Maybe he preferred the exciting work of being a gun-toting airplane hijacker.

00:10:20.340 I don't know.

00:10:21.640 Or maybe he just saw the sweep of history.

00:10:23.620 Maybe he thought in terms of centuries, not weeks.

00:10:28.320 Or even four-year terms like a president.

00:10:30.540 Bill Clinton, of course, was just six months away from his own retirement.

00:10:34.940 And maybe Arafat thought,

00:10:36.560 huh, I'll wait out these infidels. 1.00

00:10:39.020 I won't go down in history as the Muslim to make peace with the Jews. 0.95

00:10:42.980 I don't know.

00:10:43.640 Who knows what was in his mind.

00:10:45.100 But he scuppered the perfect deal.

00:10:47.620 And not only did he reject the deal,

00:10:49.400 but he immediately sparked a violent uprising across Israel.

00:10:53.600 The most deadly, other than any war in Israel, 0.95

00:10:56.280 called an intifada.

00:10:57.320 The second intifada was called.

00:10:58.540 And not only did this kill the peace deal,

00:11:00.780 but it actually killed the Israeli political left

00:11:04.380 because it proved to every Israeli, right or left,

00:11:07.500 that you could literally offer anything and everything to the Palestinians.

00:11:11.700 There literally was nothing left to offer them.

00:11:13.920 They got everything.

00:11:15.920 And they would still reject you.

00:11:17.220 It proved that the peace process wasn't about peace.

00:11:19.400 It was just about the process.

00:11:21.400 Ehud Barak was the last left-winger, if you can call him that,

00:11:25.020 elected as prime minister.

00:11:25.980 And he was gone 18 years ago.

00:11:28.840 Don't take it from me.

00:11:29.740 Take it from Bill Clinton himself.

00:11:31.000 Here's what he wrote in his autobiography.

00:11:32.520 He said Arafat once complimented him by telling him,

00:11:35.420 you are a great man.

00:11:36.740 And Clinton responded, I am not a great man.

00:11:39.140 I am a failure and you made me one.

00:11:41.600 Even Clinton said it.

00:11:42.460 But I suppose it's better to be disillusioned than illusioned.

00:11:46.880 And sure, leftists around the world, including Canada's own Justin Trudeau,

00:11:49.980 they still love the Palestinians for whatever reason.

00:11:53.240 When Donald Trump, I don't know if you recall,

00:11:55.020 when he cut $25 million from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip because of their terrorism,

00:11:59.500 Justin Trudeau jumped to the front of the line to restore their funding by giving them our money.

00:12:03.520 I mean, seriously.

00:12:04.360 But with the departure of Barack Obama a couple years ago,

00:12:07.660 the focus, the obsession on the Israel-Palestine issue was really gone.

00:12:11.740 I mean, Canada and the leftists of the European Union aren't that important in the region.

00:12:16.520 Only America is, maybe Russia. 0.96

00:12:18.760 And with the rise of ISIS in 2014 and the rise of Iran's nuclear program, 0.69

00:12:24.460 there are more important things to do than talk about the PLO.

00:12:28.560 Trump dispatched with those old illusions in a few tweets.

00:12:31.360 Here's an example.

00:12:33.200 He's got a ton of these.

00:12:34.540 He said, it's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing,

00:12:38.840 but also many other countries and others.

00:12:40.800 As an example, we pay the Palestinians hundreds of millions of dollars a year

00:12:44.580 and get no appreciation or respect.

00:12:46.100 They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue.

00:12:49.220 He was ranting here.

00:12:50.020 He had two tweets.

00:12:51.120 Peace treaty with Israel.

00:12:52.240 We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table.

00:12:55.820 But Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.

00:12:57.900 But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace,

00:13:00.500 why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?

00:13:02.860 Holy moly.

00:13:04.160 And that's not even his toughest tweet, by the way.

00:13:06.000 That was about 18 months ago he wrote that.

00:13:07.660 Trump is focused on other things in his life.

00:13:10.000 China.

00:13:11.140 North Korea.

00:13:12.480 Real threats.

00:13:13.200 Economic threats.

00:13:13.920 Nuclear threats.

00:13:15.080 Even the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

00:13:17.540 A long-running stalemate between the PLO and Israel

00:13:20.500 just isn't a top issue for Donald Trump.

00:13:23.640 Why would it be?

00:13:24.120 And really, it hasn't been a top issue for most Sunni Arab countries either.

00:13:28.540 They're either worried about being devoured by a terrorist group like ISIS,

00:13:32.640 like Syria was, or being devoured by Iran. 0.73

00:13:36.520 And I think slowly they just realized Israel might be their ally, 0.87

00:13:42.640 possibly, against some of these threats,

00:13:44.440 especially against Iran.

00:13:45.940 And Israel probably isn't going anywhere.

00:13:47.540 And what the PLO terrorists want isn't really that important

00:13:51.840 in the scheme of things.

00:13:54.120 You'll remember one of Trump's first visits as president was to Saudi Arabia.

00:13:58.440 And then immediately to Israel thereafter.

00:14:00.200 And in Saudi Arabia, Trump told the Arab countries to throw off extremism

00:14:04.540 in language that you could never imagine Obama saying.

00:14:07.680 It's a choice between two futures.

00:14:10.780 And it is a choice America cannot make for you.

00:14:15.340 A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremists.

00:14:25.760 Drive them out.

00:14:28.480 Drive them out of your places of worship. 0.98

00:14:33.220 Drive them out of your communities. 0.94

00:14:36.760 Drive them out of your holy land. 1.00

00:14:39.000 And drive them out of this earth. 0.95

00:14:42.760 That was the first time any American president had spoken so bluntly to the Saudis.

00:14:46.840 And the rest of the Saudi-oriented leaders were there, too.

00:14:51.120 That was a bunch of Arab leaders who listened.

00:14:53.880 They were all the Sunni states in the region.

00:14:56.100 And they accepted what Trump said, more or less.

00:14:58.980 Or at least they accepted that Trump said it.

00:15:01.780 And now here's Kushner, his son-in-law and fixer.

00:15:05.860 Numerous well-intended programs, investments, and plans have been derailed by violence,

00:15:11.400 political instability, and the lack of a resolution to the longstanding core issues of this conflict.

00:15:17.680 To be clear, economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people

00:15:22.960 are not possible without an enduring and fair political solution to the conflict.

00:15:28.980 One that guarantees Israel's security and respects the dignity of the Palestinian people.

00:15:35.540 However, today is not about the political issues.

00:15:38.760 We'll get to those at the right time.

00:15:40.940 The goal of this workshop is to begin thinking about these challenges in a new way.

00:15:46.000 Let's try to view this conflict and the potential of the entire region through a different lens

00:15:50.600 and work together to develop a concrete plan to try and achieve it.

00:15:55.000 For a moment, imagine a new reality in the Middle East. 0.85

00:15:58.980 Imagine a bustling commercial and tourist center in Gaza and the West Bank,

00:16:03.160 where international businesses come together and thrive.

00:16:07.120 Imagine the West Bank as a blossoming economy full of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, and business leaders.

00:16:14.860 Imagine people and goods flowing quickly and securely throughout the region

00:16:19.660 as economics become more integrated and people become more prosperous.

00:16:25.200 This isn't a stretch.

00:16:26.880 This is actually the historical legacy of the Middle East, specifically of Gaza and the West Bank.

00:16:33.040 It is a legacy of great cultures coming together as a center of commerce, innovation, and prosperity.

00:16:39.460 Well, look, that sounds great, very positive.

00:16:43.420 It feels like that end of history moment after the Cold War again.

00:16:46.840 We can all get along.

00:16:48.060 We can all, I don't know, find common ground, eat the same McDonald's, watch the same music videos.

00:16:54.280 There's never going to be another war because we'll all be buying and selling stuff to each other.

00:16:58.300 I mean, it's nice.

00:16:59.340 It didn't work under Bill Clinton. 0.60

00:17:01.060 Not sure why it would work now.

00:17:02.540 Maybe because the rest of the Muslim world is a bit tired of the Palestinian issue.

00:17:06.500 They're concerned about other issues.

00:17:07.960 Maybe because they, I don't know, really want to be rich like Dubai in Gaza, the West Bank.

00:17:14.340 Maybe because Donald Trump drives a hard bargain.

00:17:16.020 I don't know.

00:17:16.540 I'm a skeptic.

00:17:17.780 I'm a skeptic.

00:17:19.640 But look at this.

00:17:20.920 Immediately after Kushner's announcement, look at this headline.

00:17:23.940 The Palestinians, or at least some of them, have rejected the idea.

00:17:27.800 Here's a PLO diplomat quoted in that LA Times story.

00:17:31.780 Hassam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, and another ambassador to

00:17:37.000 Washington, dismissed the conference as a way to legitimize Israel's annexation of the

00:17:41.300 Palestinian territories.

00:17:42.520 They're talking about Kushner's speech in Bahrain where he said those things.

00:17:46.140 Here's what the Palestinian official said.

00:17:48.860 This is the most disingenuous, deceitful act by a state in a long time in the history of

00:17:53.700 international relations, said Zomlot in a phone interview Tuesday.

00:17:56.940 Their idea is that this is a real estate deal with Israel getting the property and Palestinians 0.98

00:18:01.900 getting the cash.

00:18:02.820 The problem is that Palestine is not for sale.

00:18:06.040 You know, I got to admit, it did sound a little bit like a real estate pitch.

00:18:10.660 That's Kushner's business, by the way.

00:18:12.660 He's a huge real estate developer in New York.

00:18:14.920 And that's Trump's business, too.

00:18:16.380 He's a real estate developer.

00:18:17.560 So maybe that insults things because maybe it's close to the truth.

00:18:20.640 Maybe it's right.

00:18:21.260 But look, real estate developers get deals done.

00:18:24.260 And this is a deal.

00:18:25.380 It's a deal that there's money and there's emotion and there's religion and there's geography.

00:18:31.040 I mean, maybe no deal is doable.

00:18:33.520 For Yasser Arafat, no deal was doable.

00:18:35.940 Why?

00:18:36.260 I don't know.

00:18:36.580 Because he was worried about being killed or being hated or making the wrong choice in

00:18:40.140 the grand sweep of history?

00:18:41.120 Who knows?

00:18:42.300 But that was the perfect deal he was offered.

00:18:44.460 I'm a deep skeptic here.

00:18:45.620 There is no tradition of liberal democracy in Arabia.

00:18:49.660 There's no civil society left in Gaza, not much in the West Bank.

00:18:54.440 There's no real free market.

00:18:56.600 There's no entrepreneurial class.

00:18:58.640 There's some crony capitalism and some robber barons.

00:19:01.200 I don't know.

00:19:02.880 What do you think?

00:19:04.320 I'm a doubter.

00:19:05.860 But our next guest is a bit more sanguine.

00:19:08.780 Stay with us for Joel Pollack next.

00:19:19.660 And joining us now is our friend Joel Pollack, senior editor at large at Breitbart.com.

00:19:29.480 Joel, great to see you again.

00:19:31.180 Jared Kushner, who's the master fixer for the Trump administration, although I think he's

00:19:36.520 too liberal for many Republicans, seems to be spearheading the greatest art of the deal

00:19:43.040 of all, a deal to solve the Palestinian problem.

00:19:46.720 I'm a big skeptic because what he says sounds a lot like the deal that was tried and failed

00:19:52.400 20 years ago.

00:19:53.620 Basically, give everything to the Palestinians and a ton of cash and think that they'll be 1.00

00:19:58.620 reasonable like us and take the deal.

00:20:00.600 I see this as just a vanity project.

00:20:04.020 Am I being too pessimistic?

00:20:05.400 Well, I don't think so.

00:20:09.580 This time, they are doing things in a different order.

00:20:12.800 And if you can find me, by the way, I'm on stage here just before the start of the Democratic

00:20:17.480 debates, which are going to take up the rest of the week here in Miami, Florida.

00:20:21.200 That's the commotion behind me.

00:20:22.440 The candidates have been walking through and preparing, and it's going to be pretty exciting

00:20:27.040 to see how this all shakes out over the weekend.

00:20:28.820 But yeah, look, they're putting things in a different order this time.

00:20:31.740 They're not putting the political solutions first.

00:20:34.740 They're putting the economic solutions first.

00:20:36.540 And I think the reason they're doing that is to say, look, we know there's this roadblock.

00:20:41.100 There's this intransigence, this refusal to negotiate on the final settlement issues,

00:20:45.600 Jerusalem, refugees, borders.

00:20:47.620 Let's look past that.

00:20:48.800 Let's look to where we want to go.

00:20:50.220 Let's look to the eventual goal.

00:20:51.780 For too long, I think previous administrations have said the agreement is the goal.

00:20:56.200 And what Jared Kushner has actually done is interesting.

00:20:58.160 He has said, no, the future is the goal, the better future, the integrated region,

00:21:02.960 the economic growth, the West Bank and Gaza prospering, Israel safe, Palestinians with 1.00

00:21:09.140 dignity, people making money, people investing, people finding work.

00:21:14.100 That's the image.

00:21:16.360 That's the vision he asked people to imagine.

00:21:19.020 And that was refreshing.

00:21:20.580 There's been too much emphasis on where the parties divide.

00:21:23.660 He's asking people to fast forward in their minds and think about a future that works for

00:21:28.900 everybody, even if there are still disputes about other things.

00:21:32.440 And I think it's very effective.

00:21:33.700 Now, Palestinians haven't agreed to anything yet, but I think what he's doing is creating 1.00

00:21:38.280 more pressure for them to agree.

00:21:39.900 It's going to be harder and harder for them to leave $50 billion on the table.

00:21:44.180 All he's asking them to do is join this economic plan before they get to the political issues.

00:21:49.360 I think it's a no-brainer for the Palestinians. 0.98

00:21:51.320 And he's increasingly making the sale to the general public in the Middle East.

00:21:54.820 Now, when I first heard $50 billion was at stake, I thought, oh my God, first of all,

00:22:00.020 that's going straight into a bunch of Swiss bank accounts.

00:22:03.000 I mean, Yasser Arafat died a billionaire.

00:22:06.400 But then I learned that the money would not be coming from America, but rather from the

00:22:10.800 Gulf states.

00:22:11.300 That made me feel slightly better about it, that it wasn't American money.

00:22:15.860 But look, I have no doubt that an ordinary Palestinian man and woman, a man or woman living

00:22:22.740 in Ramallah, or even in Gaza, would like to move away from constant conflict to, I mean,

00:22:30.460 if you want to be visionary, to a future like Dubai.

00:22:32.960 I mean, there was once a point in time where West Bank Arabs were amongst the most liberal,

00:22:39.160 secular, educated, but they have no say. 0.92

00:22:43.660 The last Palestinian elections, you know, Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, Hamas in the Gaza Strip,

00:22:50.580 there's no political dissent.

00:22:53.500 There's no genuine free press.

00:22:55.620 You could have 99% of Palestinians agree to this happy future, but if you can't get the 1.00

00:23:00.140 terrorists at the top to agree, what's the point, Joel?

00:23:02.880 Look, I think the point is to move forward regardless of what the Palestinian leadership

00:23:08.440 says.

00:23:09.260 If they agree to this, then great.

00:23:12.160 You can start integrating the region.

00:23:13.960 You can start moving ahead with peace initiatives, economic initiatives, and you can presume that

00:23:18.080 peace is a mutual goal.

00:23:19.060 If they decline, well, then Israel has done its best. 0.83

00:23:22.460 It's a massive amount of money, $50 billion.

00:23:24.780 If they'll walk away from $50 billion, they're not interested in peace at all.

00:23:28.060 They're not interested even in talking about it.

00:23:29.740 So I think it's a win-win for the administration.

00:23:32.080 Either way, they're going to move past this in terms of their foreign policy.

00:23:37.400 They're basically saying, we are not going to let our entire Middle East policy be tripped

00:23:41.040 up on this issue anymore.

00:23:42.080 And I think it'll be convincing to other Arab states, other Arab communities.

00:23:47.800 They'll say, look, we've done everything we can for the Palestinians.

00:23:50.340 We put all this money on the table.

00:23:51.360 They still walked away.

00:23:52.400 It's time for us to move on as well.

00:23:54.420 And so I think it's a win-win for the administration.

00:23:56.420 I think it's very interesting the way they've done it.

00:23:58.260 I think it'll be successful.

00:23:59.220 Well, let me ask you, because, I mean, Mahmoud Abbas, who is the, you know, I don't even

00:24:05.400 want to call him a moderate.

00:24:06.360 His thesis was a Holocaust revisionist, anti-Semitic thesis in school.

00:24:12.120 Like the guy, I don't even want to call him moderate, but I suppose compared to Hamas, 0.99

00:24:15.500 he is.

00:24:16.280 At least he's not crucifying people literally on the streets.

00:24:19.600 He's not invoking Sharia law in the same way as Hamas is. 0.79

00:24:23.080 But like, how could Hamas even do it? 0.83

00:24:26.240 How could you even do it?

00:24:27.100 Who do you even do a deal with?

00:24:28.340 I mean, would you literally do a deal with the Hamas terrorist group, which runs Gaza?

00:24:32.940 I mean, listen, if this is just a thought exercise, if this is just a call the bluff

00:24:37.240 exercise, fine.

00:24:38.680 I mean, I think it's pretty easy to call the bluff.

00:24:40.700 These guys hardwired in their party constitution of Hamas is the destruction of Israel.

00:24:46.720 I mean, listen, I think it's great to daydream and envision things, but I don't even know

00:24:52.960 how you could ever get it done.

00:24:54.940 If it's even possible with, how would you do it?

00:24:57.480 Does the administration have any ideas?

00:24:59.660 Well, first of all, Mahmoud Abbas has been in power forever.

00:25:03.360 You're right.

00:25:03.780 But he's also 84 years old and he's not in the best of health.

00:25:07.780 So this is not a situation that's going to last forever.

00:25:10.580 I'm not saying a better leader will come after him.

00:25:12.920 Quite the opposite.

00:25:13.700 In fact, after him, the entire project may dissipate.

00:25:15.980 And then you may have a freer hand in the Middle East to figure out this question without having

00:25:22.040 to kowtow to the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.

00:25:24.580 So that may change the issue itself.

00:25:27.000 The assumption of Western foreign policy elites has been that time is on the Palestinian side.

00:25:32.300 And Trump has thrown that assumption out.

00:25:34.060 And actually, when you look at it from his perspective, Trump has made it such that time

00:25:39.260 is actually on the Israeli side.

00:25:40.980 Palestinians are running out of time to do a deal. 0.97

00:25:42.560 And I think the fact that this economic plan is coming now, in advance of any kind of

00:25:46.700 concessions from Israel or any sort of agreement from the Palestinians, I think makes it clear

00:25:52.280 that Palestinians are at risk of being left behind.

00:25:55.660 So whether it gets to a deal or not, I think it does move the ball forward in terms of foreign

00:26:01.000 policy.

00:26:01.720 It makes our foreign policy more coherent.

00:26:04.140 And it, again, releases us from being held hostage by this corrupt, terroristic dictatorship,

00:26:10.140 in a sense.

00:26:10.420 Yeah.

00:26:10.740 Well, we were in, we had a little rebel mission to Israel last summer.

00:26:14.940 And the country's strong.

00:26:16.660 It's optimistic.

00:26:17.900 It actually has the highest birth rate.

00:26:20.320 And I'm not just talking about the Arab population, the Jewish birth rate, which is, I think,

00:26:24.080 an indication of optimism and economic prosperity and hope of any Western nation.

00:26:28.900 Militarily, I saw the F-35s in the sky.

00:26:31.560 Like, Israel's doing great.

00:26:33.240 And I guess this is sort of the dog that didn't bark, Joel.

00:26:36.880 I mean, under the Clinton administration, no one visited the White House more often than

00:26:40.520 Arafat.

00:26:41.080 Now, it's not an obsession of the West or of the Saudis or others.

00:26:46.540 I think you're so right.

00:26:47.660 Between dealing with the crisis of ISIS and now the crisis of Iran and just moving on, 0.83

00:26:53.840 I think maybe you're right.

00:26:55.560 And Kissinger's terrible statement is true, that maybe the Palestinians never miss an opportunity 1.00

00:27:00.720 to miss an opportunity.

00:27:01.940 Last word to you, my friend.

00:27:03.140 Well, this is the Trump administration's way of getting out from under that problem.

00:27:10.160 I think that's true.

00:27:10.900 They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

00:27:12.880 But basically, Trump and Kissinger are saying that's not going to hold back American foreign

00:27:18.140 policy any longer.

00:27:19.300 You don't get a veto over what we do.

00:27:21.700 And the American administration has decided that for the broader interest of the United

00:27:25.160 States, especially confronting Iran and building strategic alliances in the Middle East,

00:27:29.920 they're not going to let the Palestinians hold up the issue any longer.

00:27:32.380 Putting this massive amount of money on the table, $50 billion, is a way of signaling,

00:27:37.340 first, to the Palestinians about what they're losing if they don't go with the deal.

00:27:40.880 And secondly, to the other states in the region about how little the Palestinians care

00:27:44.440 if they turn this down.

00:27:45.820 Yes, Palestinians say that money is not the issue.

00:27:48.720 They want certain issues.

00:27:49.980 They want dignity.

00:27:50.780 They want Jerusalem and all that other sort of thing.

00:27:53.160 What Trump is basically saying is you can't hold the entire region back because you're

00:27:56.160 upset about those issues.

00:27:57.340 We're going to move forward regardless.

00:27:58.620 You can decide to be part of that, or you can decide to sit on the sidelines and let other

00:28:02.100 people determine your future for you.

00:28:04.420 Very interesting.

00:28:05.240 Joel, I know you're so busy there.

00:28:07.100 I'm grateful that you jammed us in.

00:28:09.120 And I know you've got a laptop and you've got a phone.

00:28:11.960 And thanks for working with us when we lost you briefly there on Skype.

00:28:15.480 Good luck at the Democrats.

00:28:16.820 I'll follow.

00:28:17.400 Maybe we'll have you on in a few days to talk about how all that went, because it's

00:28:21.100 very interesting to me.

00:28:22.280 Thanks, my friend.

00:28:22.840 Take care, Joel.

00:28:23.520 Thank you.

00:28:24.080 Take care.

00:28:24.520 Well, I'm so grateful for our friend, Joel Pollack.

00:28:26.960 As you can see, he's there.

00:28:28.800 The Democratic presidential nominations, they're not really in full swing yet.

00:28:34.760 But boy, it reminds me in some ways of the Republican nomination.

00:28:39.100 So many candidates, so many colorful characters.

00:28:42.120 We'll have to ramp up our coverage of that.

00:28:44.020 Of course, here in Canada, we've got our own federal election coming first.

00:28:46.920 But it's very interesting to talk with Joel, who I regard as an expert on the question

00:28:51.800 of Israel and those issues, wouldn't you?

00:28:54.460 All right.

00:28:54.880 Stay with us.

00:28:55.400 More Ahead on the Rebel.

00:29:07.380 Well, that's our show for today, folks.

00:29:08.880 What do you think?

00:29:10.800 Like I said, the first thing I thought of when I saw Jared Kushner was, well, I haven't

00:29:14.960 heard anyone serious talk about the Palestinian and Israeli issue in a long time.

00:29:19.200 That was my first reaction.

00:29:20.720 My second was, look, I've seen this movie before, 19 years ago.

00:29:24.260 It didn't work then.

00:29:24.780 Why would it work now?

00:29:25.960 As Joel says, maybe that's the whole point.

00:29:28.800 Trump's offering them a huge swack of dough.

00:29:32.400 I should point out that 50 billion is not American money.

00:29:35.180 It's money from the Arab countries, which makes me feel better. 0.85

00:29:38.740 I thought, geez, if you've got $50 billion, how about build a fence in the United States

00:29:43.040 first?

00:29:43.700 A wall.

00:29:44.120 But maybe it's calling the bluff.

00:29:46.880 And maybe when the Palestinians say no, as they seem to be doing, Jared Kushner and Donald 0.99

00:29:52.020 Trump will move on to other things.

00:29:53.980 And so will the Arab world. 1.00

00:29:55.460 I don't know.

00:29:56.560 We'll find out in the months and years ahead.

00:29:59.120 Well, that's our show for today, folks.

00:30:00.380 On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and

00:30:04.060 keep fighting for freedom.

00:30:04.920 Good night.

00:30:06.240 Good night.

00:30:06.380 Good night.

00:30:06.980 Good night.

00:30:07.460 Good night.

00:30:08.880 Good night.

00:30:09.800 Good night.

00:30:09.880 Listen to him.

00:30:10.380 Good night.

00:30:10.780 Good night.

00:30:11.040 Good night.

00:30:11.700 Good night.

00:30:25.820 Good night.

00:30:26.420 Good night.

00:30:26.780 Good night.

00:30:27.300 Good night.

00:30:27.840 Good night.

00:30:28.180 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - June 28, 2019

Can Donald Trump's Art of the Deal business mastery solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict？

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